Can we lose the word 'ability' in the primary classroom?

[Cortina]

It's a seemingly very small thing but if we spoke about current attainment rather than 'ability' in the primary classroom I think it would be a great leap forward. Actually not just in the primary classroom but most importantly here.

I've been reading about CLAPS - how about CLAP tables? (current level of achievement and performance).

Let's do away with the term 'ability tables' - they make some children think that ability has a ceiling and we are making fatalistic predictions about what can be expected of them.

There is no scientific justification any more - if it ever existed - for labelling children as having different amounts of 'intelligence', 'ability' or interestingly even 'potential'.

It's also dangerous and counter productive to do so, so let's banish the word!

Intelligence is learnable.

I'm not talking about learning to operate an aeroplane. I'm talking about physically using my body to fly.

I do not and never will have the ability to fly.

I will not attain flying either.

You can achieve a lot

But I do not agree that you should teach children that they can do anything they want to do if they try hard enough. Their expectations need to be adjusted within the realms of reality.

There are certain things they will never be able to do.

Colour blind children will not be pilots. Fact.

nobody will sprout wings and fly. fact.

Every single boy in the school playing for Manchester United is not physically possible. Fact.

It's all very nice to let their aspirations run wild, but when they actually try to do the impossible things they are aspiring to do - what then? how with their sense of worth react to such a crushing blow, when they actually fail?

you have taught them to believe they can have anything they work for - and that's just not true. You have not taught them how to deal with failure at all, because they think that if they fail they have not worked hard enough.

Well there might be new research but I'm not sure it's borne out in this thing called "real life". If intelligence isnt genetic then why does intelligence tend to run in families?

Some people are clever, some people are stupid, most are somewhere in the middle, the same as for most human attributes.

If everyone can be intelligent, then surely everyone can also run 100m in less than 10 secs? We're just got to learn how.......or maybe not.

I'm not saying that everyone can't improve within the boundaries set by mental capacity, but that's hardly new. What I'm saying is not everyone has the intellectual capacity to understand complex abstract concepts.

Maybe a little less reading Dweck and actually investing time in your son might do him more good than theories

I actually agree with colditz. As a university teacher I see a lot of young people who have been told that they can achieve anything and understand everything, but who do not actually have the innate ability. It is really sad to watch when some of them gradually realise that they cannot understand the concepts that some of the other students understand. I do everything I can to support them, including countless extra tutorials, but the truth is that however hard they work, and however hard I work, there are students who simply cannot understand all the concepts I teach.

If we claim that achievement is only limited in the case of people with learning impairments, then either these students (who would be perfectly capable in most walks of life) will have to believe that they have learning impairments because they can't pass the exam in an extremely difficult subject, or they would have to blame themselves for not working harder when they are already working as hard as they can.

I think it is far better when you have tried all you possibly can to say 'ok, this course probably wasn't the best thing for me, let's think of what I can do instead'.

In the academic world a growth mindset is not enough in itself: you also have to write good stuff. And if you are not realistic about your abilities, then the stuff you write is far less likely to actually be of any value.

Yes, everybody can develop their abilities to be better than they presently are- that I firmly do believe. But not everybody can improve their abilities to be as good as their friend X, or good enough to carry out a certain difficult task.

Cory, Dweck I think argues that a growth mindset can take students much further than people imagine. She talks about Chemistry students who looked for themes and underlying principles rather than trying to memorise to ace the test. Those with a growth mindset went over mistakes until they were certain they understood them. They were studying to learn. Could it be your attitude when you approach the difficult concepts that is the key? I certainly used to have a fixed mindset and would almost unknowingly switch off if I thought I was going out of my intellectual depth. I got stressed and just couldn't 'get things' in that sort of anxious state of mind. Now I have more of a growth mindset I think I could grasp things better.

I do think that potential is wasted by underestimating ability to develop. It is possible to increase your learning power. Apparently people's intelligence is capped not so much by their genetic inheritance as much as their acquired belief it's fixed. (I certainly know this was true for me in the past).

That said I see where you are coming from Cory. If students have got the qualifications to get on the academic course surely they should be able to understand the concepts taught?

What's interesting to me is that traditional views of intelligence are changing. Claxton talks about 'Real World Intelligence' and how we are beginning to value all the components that make up 'intelligence'. Piaget. I think, said intelligence wasn't about 'knowing lots' and his IQ tests were never intended (by him) to be a stand alone test of how much innate intelligence someone had.

As I see it intelligence has many components, it isn't just about 'writing and knowing' it has social and practical aspects too. There are many different types of intelligent activity, copying and practising have as much value as thinking and analysing. Many seem to think that people are born smart, average or dumb and that stays with them for life, all the new research points to the brain being like a muscle, it changes and gets stronger the more you use it. 20th Century schools subscribed to this view but 21st Century science apparently says intelligence is expandable and there are lots of unexplored exciting possibilities for education and students because of this. Great. I want to read more about it.

Cortina- apart from being able to read a book which is part of an industry aimed at selling us things to improve our "intelligence" (a diet industry for the 21st century) do you yourself have any qualifications which enable you to critically assess what you;re reading. I'm just quite interested since at the moment you do just seem to be regurgitating it.

In your challenge of Cory, I think it's quite amusing that you think university students are taught to test. Which uni did you attend I wonder?

Intelligence has never been about knowing lots. I'm not sure who thought it was. That's called general knowledge. Copying/practicing something (eg writing/ number bonds)doesnt make you more intelligent. It makes you better at that particular skill. Having a skill and being intelligent are two different things. Why is that so hard for you to understand?

I agree with Cory, Colditz and TheBride.

I am also perplexed at the implication that people with learning difficulties are some sort of separate species, that they have a ceiling to their ability/potential but the rest of us don't. That seems unlikely. I would have thought we're all subject to the same general rule - that intelligence is quite fluid, that we have an innate level of intelligence which can be enhanced by learning and positive early experiences or constrained by physical damage or poor early experiences (such as the Romanian orphanages).

If (as I surmise) OP's beef is with how teachers group the children at ability/attainment tables, then in the schools I've seen at close hand the groupings are about what the children are currently doing and are much more about attainment.

Interesting post cory and I agree with you. Would you tell us your subject area?

I agree with Cory (and have very similar experiences with AAA uni students)

I reacted in the same way as ASmallBunch. I felt instantly uncomfortable with the idea of there being two categories: people without learning difficulties=endless possibilities, people with learning difficulties=limitations. Surely there are very fluid borderlines between SN and NT children?

I am vaguely in favour of children being grouped by ability/attainment/whatever you like to call it, because I saw what an enormous difference it made to my ds when he was moved away from his very high achieving friends and made to work with other children who were on the same level as him. Suddenly, he gained confidence; he wasn't constantly comparing himself to others and thinking how hopeless he was; he got on with the job. And eventually was able to move up a set. He may well move up further as time goes on. But spending all his time working with children who were academically years ahead of him was not doing his confidence any favours.

Besides, ability groups are fluid at school; DC change regularly between groups and so do their friends (from what DC tell me).

Ditto for activities outside of school, too, come to think of it. I was a very high achiever until age 8, then an enormous underachiever in school until the age of 14 when I suddenly moved back into top sets, my place was hardly branded on my forehead from an early age.

"Cory, Dweck I think argues that a growth mindset can take students much further than people imagine. She talks about Chemistry students who looked for themes and underlying principles rather than trying to memorise to ace the test. Those with a growth mindset went over mistakes until they were certain they understood them. They were studying to learn. Could it be your attitude when you approach the difficult concepts that is the key? I certainly used to have a fixed mindset and would almost unknowingly switch off if I thought I was going out of my intellectual depth. I got stressed and just couldn't 'get things' in that sort of anxious state of mind. Now I have more of a growth mindset I think I could grasp things better."

I am not talking about students who switch off and refuse to write dissertations through lack of confidence: I am talking about students who have a great deal of confidence but unfortunately what they write is crap!

Ime over-confidence is not an asset in academic studies. The worst dissertations I have read have been written by people who really believed they were geniuses and who were very happily getting out of their intellectual depth, without ever realising... The best I have ever read were by people who understood their own strengths and limitations and worked within those limits.

At the kind of level I am talking about, learning to tests doesn't come into it: that's not what we do. I am talking about a level where you have to produce original thinking before it even looks like an essay. But original thinking is absolutely no guarantee it will actually be any good.

What rubbish ! Is this left wing lunacy to blot out the fundamental fact that some children are more able than others ?

What level are you talking about Cory? Appreciate such high level academics may not be suitable for everyone. What that doesn't mean is that students couldn't improve from their starting position. They also need teachers who believe they can improve. I think we agree on that.

I don't believe is that intelligence is largely fixed and educators can make use of it but not really alter it. There's lots of credible research out there now which is changing the way we see things. There are genetic influences on intelligence but they are very far from being a life sentence and they are not large. I am reading more on this now and it's fascinating and challenging some long held beliefs I held.

My original point was that most can get better at what they do and that at 5 years old talking about 'ability' and implying it is fixed is dangerous, limiting and untrue. Teachers with growth mindsets are also absolutely vital, especially in the early years.

What's an ability table?

Cortina- none of us are disputing that personal improvement is usually possible. What we are disputing with you is that there is no ceiling to intelligence and therefore that we are all capable of achieving the same level of academic achievement which is just not the case.

Even people who have been hailed as geniuses for solving major problems are often just putting the last piece in a jigsaw that many others contributed to.

It's far too early to say that genes only account for 1% of variable intelligence. They dont even know what genes really do yet. That's why the human genome project has been such a damp squib (not to say it wasnt a fantastic academic achievement in itself). It just hasn't provided all the answers that it was hoped it would. We are far from understanding how genes really work. One day, someone will figure it out I'm sure. We know intelligence runs in families. We just cant say exactly how this is coded yet. As we know so little about how the brain works, it is stupid for anyone to say that they know how genes impact mental development and that they're largely irrelevant.

A lot of the "research" saying that intelligence is fluid is written by people who are making a living from "intelligence boosting" courses/products. A lot of these are BS or actually work on memory/ skills not intelligence. Baby einstein and Nintendo brain train are just two examples of commercial products which have been entirely discredited. We WANT to believe we can all be clever, just as we all WANT to believe we can all look like Jennifer Aniston, and there's an industry that's going to prey on that.

Ability groups in no way imply that ability is fixed - presumably children move between them as they progress. However, the word "ability" accurately describes "what I am able to do currently." At the moment, I don't know how to put up shelves.I cant do it. If you said "you dont have the ability to put up shelves" I would concur. If you showed me how, then I could do it. What's the problem?

I think that it is really important to consider that children/people are not just bright or dim, but that we all have lots of varying skills, capacities, potential etc. So long as setting is done precisely on the subject in hand it is very valuable and useful, as it means that learning can be tailored. So a school that set children once and for everything is very bad, but one that groups in different ways for different activities is good.

My dh went to a school that had "A" stream "B" stream etc, and actually allocated subjects on that basis (ie A stream did Latin and B stream did computers). I went to a school that set for maths and French. I was top at maths and bottom at French, because I am good at getting concepts, but have a very bad ear for accents (and am very bad at/really dislike rote learning). My maths skills sadly were not up to the much more complex ideas as I got older (and my ability to understand and then forget abstract concepts within minutes). I managed to get a CSE at French because we had a very good teacher who tailored her teaching to frankly rather slow and reluctant learners.

So I totally agree that labeling a young child as bad at something, or as lacking ability can lead to them thinking of themselves that way, when they might just be a bit delayed in that particular area and catch up later. I am aware with my own family that because it is expected that we will all be bright and achieve we are more motivated than my dh's family who don't really value school work or expect to do well at it.

But we do have differing abilities, and given how complicated intelligence is and how little we understand how the brain works I really don't see why anyone thought that six genes were going to account for everything - how did they associate them with intelligence in any case? What sort of intelligence? IQ tests have been shown to be incredibly limited for example.

My ds is dyslexic, a known inherited trait (all the boys except one in the last two generations of my family), but he's very bright. So highly intelligent, but struggling with a significant ability/skill. He would have been labeled as stupid in past generations, so it's great to have moved on there, but his writing issues are a limiting factor for him - I'd rather he was judged on his ability to write readably (limited) than his performance (frankly fairly terrible).

You're up early, Bride! As am I.

I think there is a danger ability groupings do imply ability is fixed, perhaps even on a subconscious level. I get upset when I hear young children being described as 'low level ability' or similar, as if all the children in the class could be neatly plotted in a graph from low ability to high ability.

When a teacher talks about 'one of my more able pupils' I don't think in terms of what that child is able to do currently, I tend to sway towards thinking of that child having an IQ that is higher than others/more potential. That's the concern. I don't think I am alone in that.

I appreciate you and others can see beyond the title but I as I see it this doesn't happen more broadly. I prefer to think of groupings, if we must have them, as being about current level of attainment and performance. In other words this may change. DS thinks his ability is fixed in year one, most of his friends think similarly. I don't think that's healthy. Perhaps our school and situation is very unusual but looking at threads on here I see that many seem to think in a similar way and it saddens me.

Was it you who said the recent stuff out there on intelligence was the 'diet industry' of the 21st Century? I thought that was interesting. It's a whole other thread.

You are right in that new thinking about intelligence is very much a work in progress. The latest findings in cognitive neuroscience (not an area I claim to know much about) do seem to be showing that intelligence is also much more expandable than was first thought.

I've enjoyed reading the Gladwell books and Dweck. I've think they've made some great observations. I'd always assumed that some were born brilliant - and sure perhaps a very small % are - but have come to believe that most of us can be taught to draw to a fairly high standard for example and can do lots more than we might believe possible. Edison and Darwin etc, might not be quite as 'gifted' as one might think when you realise how much support they had around them. Michael Jordan wasn't good enough for the school baseball third team until he decided he would work at it every day for hours before school and so on. I think we are in agreement on this anyway. Gladwell also made the interesting point that as a society we value natural, effortless accomplishment over achievement through effort. I think that's true from what I see.

What I've been reading recently suggests that the education system might be the victim of a number of enduring myths relating to intelligence which are unhelpful and potentially harmful. Having said that reading posts on here this might not be as widespread as I feared. There are some really creative, committed teachers out there who want to bring out the best in every pupil and don't label them at any point in their school career.

But Cortina, ability grouping does not have to imply a fixed attitude towards ability. Both my dcs have moved across ability groups from one year to another and that is not uncommon. If this cannot happen in the school, then surely that's because that particular school is not using the system to its full advantage, not because the system is wrong in itself?

About the academic levels, Cortina, there is no academic level in my department where you can simply learn to the test. The students have to write essays from Yr 1, and these essays have to include original thinking and reasoning, not just rehashing what they've been told. It is still a fact that not all original reasoning is good; in fact, some of it is completely bonkers.

But of course, the differences in intelligence become more noticeable the higher up the academic ladder you go: by the time you get to postgraduate level, all the students have spent many years working flat out at a subject they are (mostly) passionately interested in and which they have been led to believe they can do, so any question of being held back by other people's negative mindsets becomes pretty much irrelevant. At this higher level, the teachers' role is much less important: part of the postgraduate training is that you have to become somebody who works and things independently; you have occasional support and advice, but you really have to do it for yourself; that's the whole point of the exercise.

Interesting discussion. This guy produced research to show that intelligance was fixed at birth. The 11 plus system was introduced with reference to his work. However parts of his research were claimed to be false after his death.

Surely noone any longer believes that intelligence is totally fixed at birth, or that intelligence is totally definable? That doesn't mean we can all be as good as each other. Dh's painting improved a lot through good teaching and has given him great pleasure: but I think he is unlikely to emulate Monet or Rembrandt any time soon.

What I think would be more useful is to teach children that you are allowed to be mediocre at something and still enjoy it. You don't have to do a degree in literature to enjoy a good book. You are allowed to paint and sing and play an instrument amateurishly. You don't have to believe you are going to become a top performer just because you are spending a lot of time on something.

"Michael Jordan wasn't good enough for the school baseball third team until he decided he would work at it every day for hours before school and so on."

And other people might put in the same time and never make it onto the basketball team. There has got to be an inate spark, which makes all the difference.

There were two brothers at my DCs primary, both were worked very hard by their parents playing the piano. Both had the same teachers and I suspect knowing the parents having to put in the same practise.

The older brother played beautifully and his performances were natural and flowing, he went on to get a music scholarship.

The younger one could play very well, but just lacked something. He was probably just as technically correct but you could tell his playing lacked something.

I have worked with "overeducated" people and yes they may have been pushed to get higher marks by private schools, but it still doesn't make them intelligent, they still don't understand simple concepts. My Dad who went to a village school in cyprus and left school at the age of 12 could probably run rings round them.

If a child is on the "bottom" table whether it is ability or attainment is there because they need extra help or it takes a lot longer for them to achieve something that it takes a child on the "higher" tables, not because the teacher wants to deliberately hold them back.

I have a slow burner who has climbed his way from the bottom to the top over the years. If he was grouped by attainment he would be in the middle sets for english becaue of SLD, but because his teachers recognise his ability he is in the top sets. My son would be held back if everything was based on attainement.